


they spoke about tomorrow, but tomorrow never came

by nosecoffee



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: After Scarif, Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Limbo AU, Male/Female Friendship, Panic Attacks, Vague Afterlife AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 06:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9222764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: "If we'd made it off Scarif. What did you want to do?" Cassian's voice is still rough and accented, but softer. He's calm, at peace with what happened.Jyn is so far from that she thinks she is perhaps drowning in his acceptance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Empty Chairs at Empty Tables' from Les Miserables

"What did you want?"

The question hangs in the air, an uncomfortable silence stretched into the nooks and corners they didn't know was there.

Jyn doesn't want to open her eyes, just yet. If she does, she'll have to face what happened, and if she can put that off she'll keep her eyes closed for a thousand years.

"If we'd made it off Scarif. What did you want to do?" Cassian's voice is still rough and accented, but softer. He's calm, at peace with what happened.

Jyn is so far from that she thinks she is perhaps drowning in his acceptance.

"I don't know," she whispers, "I think that it would have taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to do."

"I wanted to keep fighting." Cassian grunts, and Jyn hears a scraping as if he's adjusting the way he's sitting. "I hope they're still fighting."

Jyn doesn't know what to say to that. She wants to assure him that they are, but how can she know? "Yeah," is what she settles on.

"Jyn?"

She inhales through her nose, anticipating what he's about to say.

"Will you look at me?" Jyn shakes her head, feels the strands of her dirty hair hitting her nose and her cheeks.

"No."

"Why not?" Cassian's voice has lost some of the calmness it held moments ago. He's scared. She hears it, thinks that if she opened her eyes she'd see it to.

"I just want to pretend that this isn't happening." Jyn replies. He sighs shakily.

"I wish I could." Cassian says. "I wish I could pretend."

Jyn feels him shift beside her, the damp sand at her palms squishing and scraping her skin.

"How can you?" He asks.

Her lips quirk just so, "With great difficulty." Cassian huffs a laugh.

"God." He chuckles. It's humourless. "It feels like we've been cheated out of something. Wasn't there supposed to be something else? Weren't we supposed to sleep forever? Does the Force have some dark sense of humour?"

"The Force isn't a being, Cassian." Jyn says, and maybe it's to shut him up and maybe it's to stop herself from breaking down. She doesn't quite know herself. "It doesn't have a physical form, or humour. It just is."

She sighs and her left hand scrapes over the sand, in search of his battle-worn skin, the scared hand - there. She settles it over his, hears his breath hitch.

"The Force delivers what we deserve. This is what we deserve." Jyn whispers.

Cassian's grating, punishing tone comes back, "I feel like I deserve better than this. Or perhaps the Force is on the Dark Side after all." Jyn squeezes his hand as he says it, silently begging him not to believe it, silently begging him to let it go.

Begging herself to drift. To forget. To accept.

There's a long silence after his comment. Just the sound of their breaths and the subtle roll of the waves.

She feels him shuffle occasionally, closer and further, pressed up against her, so far away that his hand strains under hers.

"Jyn," he whispers eventually and she tenses. "Please open your eyes."

"No."

"I can't do this alone." Cassian pleads. He takes her hand, sandwiching it between both of his own. "Open your eyes."

"Just leave me alone." The pressure retreats.

Jyn thinks for a moment that he's doing what she asked, shuffled across the sand, far enough to give her space.

But she doesn't hear the whisper of his breath, the shudder of his quiet sobs, the shuffle and scrape of his skin on the sand.

Jyn opens her eyes and is immediately blinded by the setting sun, reflected symmetrically on the water that lines the horizon.

She shades her eyes, looks down. Her feet are bare. She doesn't know why she didn't notice that before, but as she wriggles her toes in the sand and smiles softly for a second. Then she looks up and realises that Cassian isn't there.

Jyn is sitting on a tiny patch of sand in the middle of the ocean, alone. Not on an island, not on a beach, not like the beach where she'd died-

_Cassian's arms around her, his laboured breath stirring her hair, the wind of a shockwave, the blinding light of the explosion that would disintegrate their bodies, long dead before it reached them-_

Jyn shook the memory off, panic taking over.

"Cassian!" She screams, and knows that wherever he's gone, on her command, he can't hear her. "Please, Cassian!"

Jyn screams herself hoarse and only stops when the sun is set and the stars shine bright and she closes her eyes to try and find some semblance of sleep.

"I can't do this alone," she whispers, feeling tears run down her cheeks.

It's like she said a magic word because she feels him lie down beside her. Jyn opens her eyes but doesn't dare to look at him just yet, for fear of what she may see when she does.

"I thought you might try to drown yourself," Cassian says in a joking tone, but it tapers off at the end, too real to be a joke.

"It wouldn't work." She replies and feels him take her hand.

"No," he agrees. She turns her head, looks at him, sees his warm brown eyes gazing back, looking at her as if she was one of the stars, and not the woman who led him to his demise.

Jyn has to steel herself after that thought. He's still there when she opens her eyes again.

"You said my father would be proud of me." Jyn says. "But I led so many people to their deaths."

Cassian purses his lips. He looks just the same as he did before Scarif.

"Was it worth it?"

"If the Rebellion defeats the Empire, no matter how many years, or how many ships, it will always be worth it." Cassian replies and his voice is so sure, you'd think he hadn't just died.

Jyn inhales shakily and squeezes his hand.

"D'you want to get out of here?" Cassian asks after a moment.

"What?"

"When you told me to go, I found a nice little place with a certain defector." Jyn doesn't look at him. Doesn't need to.

She knows by his voice that he's telling the truth.

"I can't come back, can I?" Her voice only shakes a little, like it did when she called his name as he fell off the archives.

"Would you want to?" Cassian only sounds curious.

"I don't know."

"It was a fluke, for me. Yes, you wouldn't come back." Jyn sits up, squeezes his hand to keep herself grounded.

"Take me there." Cassian smiles and helps her to her feet.

Jyn doesn't think that she's ready to recover yet, doesn't think she's ready to laugh and try to forget Scarif, but as long as Cassian is there to help her through, she'll try.

  
Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please feel free to leave a comment and/or kudos, and track me down on Tumblr @nose-coffee. Again, thank you!


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